Rage
by BullardCR
Summary: Onehour oneshot. Just how dark can the kindest of men become?


I do not own the rights to Neon Genesis Evangelion, or any of the characters, equipment, or locations written in this fanfiction. The purpose of this fanfiction is merely for the non-profit enjoyment of other readers. If requested by Gainax, Hideki Anno, or other parties which represent aforementioned objects in this story, I will remove it promptly.

**Rage:**

Shinji couldn't take it anymore. He had seen a lot of things in his life that made him question his faith in humanity, in being a good person. However, none had shaken his beliefs like this. Asuka was either dead or dying, but which, he was uncertain. The nine white mass production Units stood above her Eva's corpse like mourners at her funeral, which then turned to jackals, tearing into the flesh. She was one person sent out against nine, and all because he refused to fight, because he chose to run away.

He shook his head in the LCL filled chamber, snarling. No, he would not let it end like that. He would not allow the city he had come to tolerate, friends he had fought to protect, and the one person who he now understood was simply trying to push him to his potential to all crumble at the hands of this filth. He saw the butchery they engaged in, the joy they took in storming the GeoFront, murdering unarmed civilians who simply were in the way of their advances. Surrender was not a word they understood, not when they were enjoying themselves.

"They won't be the only ones," the Third Child muttered through clenched teeth. "No... they will be the last..."

"Shinji?" Maya shouted over the tac-net, the firefight in the command center blocking out any distinguishable words on either end of the line. Ibuki fumbled for the headset on the punctured, damaged terminal she huddled underneath, hoping she could retrieve it without losing her hand to the suppressing fire. "Shinji, is that you?"

But he found it impossible to speak to another person. He could curse and stutter all he wished to himself as he seethed in anger within the plug, but he could not truly express in words the feelings he had to another person. All he could do is clench his fists, the standard behavior he had adopted. Had Maya been able to observe from her terminal, now her makeshift barricade, she would have seen the classic Ikari tell.

However, she could feel her stomach lurch within as she heard the footsteps of the purple construct echo through the plug, broadcast for all to hear on the tac-net. It never scared her before, she considered. Even when the Eva went Berserk, there was always that understanding it was not under Shinji's control. It was a comforting realization, knowing it was the hate of a beast which drove the monster forward, not the will of a corrupted, vile human.

But now, that comfort was gone.

The slow, methodical footsteps began to quicken to a run, the behemoth leaning forward, arms held out at its sides as the pilot violently shoved the control yokes forward. There was no softness, no caution in his movements. He no longer cared for thinking about his personal safety, or protecting another. This was a last stand for vengeance, a release of pure rage, nothing more.

The first of the regenerated Units extended its lance, the metamorphosis taking place as it charged forward to meet the enemy head on. Its programmed dummy plug could not grasp this strategy. There was nothing in its memory or the various war games which it played during its development that could explain the strategy taken by the adversary. It seemed a simple maneuver performed by an uneducated player, nothing more.

Then the AT Field, and the vain attempt on the part of its pilot to block the artificial Lance was detected by its sensors. There was no mistaking the outcome, the intelligence thought. The white mecha simply thrust forward, the orange barrier sliced through cleanly by the helical polearm.

Shinji felt the pain instantly, a stabbing, driving pain moving through his chest, grazing the vertebrae of his spine. He leaned over in the seat, coughing, his saliva rich with blood. There was no mistaking the burst he felt in his chest, his body now struggling for oxygen. One lung had collapsed, and without immediate treatment, he could die.

But again the sight of the red Eva fallen in the distance drove him on. His arms pushed hard against the controls, the Eva slowly rising up from its collapsed, kneeling state, rising back to meet the mecha head on. There was no time to think, no time to grab a weapon, or anything. All that drove him on was instinct, but not the instinct of survival. Instead, it was an even deeper, darker instinct.

He craved food, and for the first time, wondered what an Eva tasted like.

The right arm of Unit-01 shot out like lightning, catching its white counterpart off guard. The dummy plug calculated the proper response, and pushed back as fast as it could, driving the lance further through the punctured flesh. However, something was wrong. The adversary seemed to crave it, the feral smile of the purple face seeming to enjoy the feeling of the lance forcing through its dying corpse. The construct walked further into the lance, closer to it. It was now the dummy plug struggled, trying to search its memory for some hint at what the strategy could have been.

But as the head of its host body was torn into ragged chunks of flesh and bone, pain signaling defeat through the shattered spinal column, the dummy plug was incapable of determining the strategy. It had to consider damage control, and instantly spun up the S2 drive to metabolize the necessary matter for the energy transfer.

Shinji screamed and howled, no longer gripping the controls at all. Instead, he pounded and drove his fists into the controls, crushing the bones in his hands, puncturing his flesh as he willed the construct on only with his hate. The machine, regardless of the damage to the entry plug, complied dumbly, its own S2 drive beginning to peak. The hands reached out, and pulling on the lance, tore the implement from its chest. Ikari let out ragged breaths, feeling the pain in his lung slowly fade.

As the wounds slowly healed, the dummy plug noticed similar repairs from its adversary. The purple mecha must have been upgraded, it thought. There was no mistaking the telltale radiation signature, either. Another S2 drive, installed in an obsolete model. It had to reconsider the odds, and within a millisecond, had its answer.

Unfortunately, it didn't have much time to consider the answer as the lance pushed through its host's spine. A critical error signaled, noting a loss of containment within the S2 drive. It could no longer control the device, a large portion of its safeties gone.

In the few milliseconds before detonation, the dummy plug had one moment to recalculate the odds again, now considering the probability the target would survive the initial flash, the shock wave, and then the burst of heat. Somehow, the factors were no longer in the favor of its comrades, but the intelligence could not determine why. Only a simple signal from the biological aspect of its hierarchical brain throbbed with a sensation akin to fear. The odds were no longer of concern.

Shinji howled with delight, watching the creature destroy itself. "So much power," he snarled in joy, baring his teeth, craving the taste of freshly cooked Eva. There was something about the texture and feel of the bulbous head he previously decapitated which made him think of whales. In the back of his mind, Ikari wondered if this was the same thrill hunters on the sea felt when killing the leviathans, or killing any game animal for that matter. No, he thought. There was something different about this feeling. There was... pleasure, he considered. There was sheer pleasure at knowing he was terminating a sentient life form, even if it was artificial.

As Unit-o1 continued the death march, the remaining eight Evas soared above the ruined GeoFront, escaping the initial blast. The lance was still in his control, and glaring at the mocking figures circling above, the weight in the mecha's frame lightened. Shinji could not help but will the construct to hop on its feet, feeling suddenly lighter. There was no pause to consider if it was possible, or even how he would respond if it did work. All he could think of doing was tearing into that juicy flesh again, devouring another living, thinking, feeling creature, making it experience what it made Asuka experience.

As the glistening orange framework of wings burst from the back of the creature, Shinji drove his feet down into the floor of the entry plug.

The soldiers below could only stop and stare, watching as eight of the greatest artificial creatures created by the hands of man were crushed by something dubbed an inferior product. Furthermore, they could not help but cringe at the delight which crossed the beast's face as flesh rained down from the heavens in bloody lumps. The men ran, their comrades often crushed under the falling, tumbling meat. Whole tanks and artillery pieces were flattened by substances which looked to have the consistency of gelatin. The earth rocked under their feet, sending some of them headfirst into the service roads and trails along the inner defenses of the underground city. As the raining meat subsided, those who were left alive from the initial impacts were left to glance upward.

The beast hovered quietly for a moment, coated in a purplish ooze. For a moment, the men seemed to hear whispering echoes of laughter emanating from the back of their minds, all in synch to the slight elevation and spread jaw of the creature towering above them.

"Shinji, Shinji, do you read?" Maya cried, the gunfire subsiding. "Shinji, the Self Defense Forces are retreating! You have them on the run!"

"...No..." the raspy voice on the other end of the tac-net hissed. "No retreat..."

"What?" the lieutenant asked. Just then, she heard footsteps to her right. Glancing up, the young woman noted the man in bloodstained fatigues, the carbine barrel of the assault rifle pointed cleanly at her head. "No, wait, please! I just-"

As the single gunshot echoed over the tac-net, Shinji spoke the last words he would ever say as an intelligible human. "No retreat!"

•••••••••••••

The footage played back on every news channel, local, national, and international. The press were screaming, as were the politicians, watching a combined international coalition slaughtered on a Child's simple camcorder disc. However, the most famous of international incidents always seemed to be recorded by the harmless bystander. In time, this footage would be identical to the single man at Tianenmien Square facing off against the first tank, or the Hiroshima bomb.

The purple mecha was seen hurling any and all debris it could find into the streets, crushing the tiny, running figures on the streets below. Occasionally the leading foot was brought down on the cowering insects, small pools of red fluid shaped into a clean footprint. Then a brilliant burst of light from the chest of the creature, and the video cut out.

However, for Kensuke Aida, his memory would serve to fill in the gaps the news coverage would never release. He had been offered interview after interview, but he declined them all, eventually requesting protection from the local police of Tokyo-2 as the troops were recalled, and the puppet government withdrawn. The death threats from high ranking officials stopped being forwarded to Hikari and Toji, and after a while, things were normal again.

As normal as they would be in daylight, at least. At night, Aida would turn in his sleep, his remaining junior high friends often spending the nights at his family's new home, holding him down as he struggled up to consciousness. Hikari would hold him like a sobbing baby, his body drenched in sweat, lips parting, panting for breath. Toji could only sit there, studying his reactions, unable to offer any comfort.

Shinji was gone, but that was no longer a comfort to Aida. The fact someone like him, the boy who couldn't even strike Toji until begged to do so could not only annihilate over half a million men so easily, but then _consume_ the ones who remained alive made him think. "Do we really deserve it?" he muttered as Hikari held him.

"Deserve what, Kensuke?"

"Life..." he sleepily sobbed.

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Comments/questions, please leave a review.

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